Guantanamo Baywatch – Darling… It’s Too Late

It all sounds like the soundtrack for a mashed up hop in a school. Very, very predictable but really, really enjoyable.

It all sounds like the soundtrack for a mashed up hop in a school. Very, very predictable but really, really enjoyable.


(Suicide Squeeze) http://www.konkurrent.nl
 

What an enjoyable record this is. Ridiculously camp, daft, and somehow managing to avoid getting bogged down in irony or self-reference, Guantanamo Baywatch’s release is a classic party record in the old fashioned sense; the sort of sounds to make your cocktail gathering go with an extra swing. Within moments we’re regaled with a song about marrying a chimpanzee and swinging in harmony through the jungly tendrils. How could your lawyer neighbours fail to be charmed? Who needs to put acid in the vol au vents?

The LP boasts a lot of sparky instrumentals (Raunch Stomp, Corey Baum’s Theme, Mr Rebel, Shenanigans) that throw everything into the pot; surf, rock ‘n roll, exotica, doo wop, you name it. Consequently it all sounds like the soundtrack for a mashed up hop in a school. Very, very predictable but really, really enjoyable. The tracks with vox are cracking too; Beat Has Changed is a strained, slightly hysterical non-paean to Buddy Holly whereas the cod-Chuck Berry work out that is Sea of Love is just fantastic in its self-referential, tongue-in-cheek non-referencing (I can appreciate that may not make sense on the page but listen in). And the weepie Too Late (featuring Soul Man Curtis Harding) really takes off; exploring the spaces between soul and doo wop to great effect.

Real fun this.